1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid discharge head and a method of producing the head.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order to obtain a satisfactory liquid discharge performance of a liquid discharge head, it is important to control the surface characteristics of a discharge port face. If a liquid remains near the discharge port, the flying direction of a liquid may deflect or the discharging speed of a liquid may decrease due to the load on the liquid to be discharged. As a method of discharging a liquid with high accuracy by solving these problems, for example, treatment of imparting water repellency to the periphery of the discharge port is known.
However, even if the periphery of the discharge port is water repellency-treated, in some cases, a liquid accumulates at the periphery of the discharge port by the mist of the liquid during discharge, and it is necessary to clean the discharge port face as required. The discharge port face is cleaned by, for example, scraping the discharge port face with a blade of an elastic member abutting on the discharge port face. In particular, in a case of using a resin-dispersed pigment ink as the liquid, the ink is apt to adhere to the discharge port face, and the discharge port face is required to be strongly scraped for removing the adhered liquid. However, in such a cleaning process, the discharge port face is worn by the friction between the blade and the discharge port face. Therefore, the discharge port face is required to have a high scratch resistance. In order to prevent the occurrence of such scratches, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-145057 describes a method of preventing a reduction in liquid repellency of the discharge port face by dispersing solid particles so as to protrude to the liquid-repellent surface to inhibit a cleaning tool from becoming into contact with the liquid-repellent molecules.